On Wednesday, the conservative American Enterprise Institute [AEI] hosted a secret meeting with other Washington, D.C., think tank officials, including members from several prominent liberal ones, to discuss how to build political support for a carbon pollution tax.

The discussion even apparently raised the subject of trying to get the upcoming post-election “lame duck” Congress to address the issue.

Representatives from such liberal groups as Union of Concerned Scientists, Public Citizen, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the Brookings Institute, the Climate Action Network and Clean, Air-Cool Planet joined centrist groups such as the Concord Coalition, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and conservatives scholars from AEI and R Street, a group that broke away from the Heartland Institute.

The 5-hour meeting was titled “Price Carbon Campaign/ Lame Duck Initiative.” The first session on the agenda was titled “Congressional Republicans, Romney and Business Leaders: Detoxifying climate policy for conservatives.” This was followed by discussions titled “Progressive/Social Justice Groups,” and “Economists and deficit hawks.”

The second session was titled “Framing and selling a carbon pollution tax.” It included discussions “Building bipartisan support and navigating Ways & Means” and “Honing the case for a carbon pollution tax.”

When asked about the discussion, the AEI responded:

In recent years, AEI has been accused of being both in the pocket of energy companies and organizing to advocate a carbon tax. Neither is true. AEI has been, and will continue to be, an intellectually curious place, where products aren’t influenced by interested parties, and ideas from all are welcome in seeking solutions for difficult public policy problems.

In about 15 seconds, the right-wing blogosphere is going to go apoplectic. Remember: Some forms of steam generation are actually good for the planet — like when it ends up coming out of climate-denier ears.

The House of Representatives just set rules for debate on H.R. 2578, the “Conservation and Economic Growth Act,” meaning it will come to the floor for a vote. (Every single bill currently proposed in the House must be titled with the words “economic growth” or “jobs” or both. If it doesn’t, the bill is put out on the Capitol steps and abandoned, where it sings doleful songs to passing children.)

House Democrats, who oppose the measure, have labeled the 100-mile area the “Drone Zone,” creating a website outfitted with intern-crafted, Twilight Zone-style graphics of a Predator drone sort of hovering over middle America. You are meant to be scared by this. As we mentioned yesterday, drones are the go-to bogeyman these days, the barely visible eye-in-the-sky that is taking out terrorists in Afghanistan and Yemen. (The “taking out” is not confirmed by the government; the term “terrorists” is not always supported by the evidence.) So, yeah, Drone Zone. Look out, America! Fine.

How big is this 100-mile zone? Here’s what the zone looks like for Maine. It’s the striped area.

Click to embiggen.

Again, the suspensions apply only to public land — but in much of the zone a lot of the land is public [PDF]. The total affected area is some 118 million acres, which is why nearly every major environmental organization opposes this aspect of the bill. Maybe the whole point of the drones is so that you’ll be busy looking up as the trucks start dumping toxic waste in the rivers.

If the House approves an amendment to H.R. 2578 that strips out the possibility of drone flyovers, that doesn’t make this thing any better. Drones aren’t the bad thing at the heart of the bill. The bad thing is leveraging concerns about public safety, border security, and job creation to create areas of the country in which duly considered legislation doesn’t apply. The Congress debated and enacted each of these bills, considered the importance of each, and decided to enact them. They shouldn’t be set aside so casually.

Anyway, when it gets to the floor of the House, H.R. 2578 will be debated for 90 minutes. Seems like more than enough time.

Filed under: Energy Policy, Politics]]>http://grist.org/news/which-is-scarier-a-drone-overhead-or-an-unregulated-dump-next-door/feed/041751214_9657b5dc04pbgrist41751214_9657b5dc04Maine "drone zone"Yes, the economy could soon run on (mostly) renewable powerhttp://grist.org/news/yes-the-economy-could-soon-run-on-mostly-renewable-power/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_energypolicy
http://grist.org/news/yes-the-economy-could-soon-run-on-mostly-renewable-power/#commentsTue, 19 Jun 2012 13:39:59 +0000http://grist.org/?p=112743]]>Along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a series of billboards sponsored by FORCE, a pro-coal lobby, make the argument for coal-based power by arguing that “wind dies” and “the sun sets.” Coal wants you to think renewable energy is unstable, uneven.

The central conclusion of the analysis is that renewable electricity generation from technologies that are commercially available today, in combination with a more flexible electric system, is more than adequate to supply 80% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2050 while meeting electricity demand on an hourly basis in every region of the United States.

That quote scratches the surface of the NREL’s findings, which follow collaboration with 110 contributors from 35 organizations inside and outside the government. (The list of abbreviations used in the report itself runs two-and-a-half pages.) Another study released in 2010 found that Europe could similarly make a transition to a renewable-heavy energy infrastructure.

The United States currently generates 3.6 percent of our energy from renewable, non-hydroelectric sources, meaning that a target of 80 percent renewable generation by 2050 seems, well, optimistic. Even if the political will for such a transition existed — which it very much does not, as reinforced by those turnpike billboards — such a shift would require a massive investment and shift in energy economics. But it’s by no means impossible.

While this analysis suggests such a high renewable generation future is possible, a transformation of the electricity system would need to occur to make this future a reality. This transformation, involving every element of the grid, from system planning through operation, would need to ensure adequate planning and operating reserves, increased flexibility of the electric system, and expanded multi-state transmission infrastructure, and would likely rely on the development and adoption of technology advances, new operating procedures, evolved business models, and new market rules.

In short: daunting.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t note the most broadly engaging aspect of the NREL’s findings: the projection maps.

The animation above is an inelegant representation of the NREL report’s animated map of possible growth of renewable energy over the next 38 years. More amazing: an hour-by-hour look at energy flow in the year 2050. Watching these provides more than a little sense of living in a world of science fiction. But the more important point is what they demonstrate. We can build the renewable energy we need and even project how it will work in a national grid.

Even in 2050, the NREL projection indicates, coal has a role. But it’s unlikely our self-driving cars will pass any billboards touting it.

Electricity supply and demand can be balanced in every hour of the year in each region with nearly 80 percent electricity from renewable resources, including nearly 50 percent from variable renewable generation, according to simulations of 2050 power system operations.

High renewable electricity futures can result in deep reductions in electric sector greenhouse gas emissions and water use.

The direct incremental cost associated with high renewable generation is comparable to published cost estimates of other clean energy scenarios. Improvement in the cost and performance of renewable technologies is the most impactful lever for reducing this incremental cost.

New York state can continue to participate in a multistate effort to curb greenhouse gases, after a court dismissed a conservative legal challenge to the effort, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Members of Americans for Prosperity, a group founded and largely financed by oil industry interests, filed the suit last year in state Supreme Court in Albany against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and two state agencies, arguing that the program imposed what amounted to an illegal tax on electric ratepayers.

The group said that by making power companies pay for their carbon dioxide emissions, the program imposed costs that the companies then passed on to consumers. Such “coercive taxes” are illegally levied without approval from the state legislature, the group argued.

But in a decision signed on Tuesday, Thomas J. McNamara, an acting State Supreme Court justice, wrote that the plaintiffs lacked the standing to press their case because they had failed to establish that they had suffered a “distinct” injury from New York’s participation in RGGI (pronounced reggie).

People involved in climate politics are always throwing polls at each other purporting to “prove” that the public likes this policy or hates that policy or wants this or doesn’t want that. Everyone, at every point on the political spectrum, has a set of polls showing that the public supports their positions. I’ve done quite a bit of poll-pumping myself. The reality is, though, that polling on these issues tells us very little about how the politics will unfold.

Here’s how the results are being pitched: The public rejects the climate policies that economists prefer — market-based options like carbon pricing through a tax or cap-and-trade system — and embraces the climate policies that give economists hives, namely mandates, standards, and regulations. Also, the results show a considerable partisan divide.

Couple things to say about this.

Public: pro-good, anti-bad

First, it is a dismal fact for wonks and economists that the public does not seem to like their preferred policies, but it is definitely a fact:

Click to embiggen.

As you can see, these options split Dems down the middle but are intensely opposed by Independents and Republicans.

By contrast, all those meddlesome policies that offend economists with their inefficiency — a national renewable energy mandate, federal vehicle fuel economy standards, and federal greenhouse gas regulations — received majority support (the first two even from Republicans).

It’s important to understand why public opinion shakes out this way. I don’t think it’s quite right to say the public “disagrees” with wonks; that implies that the public is familiar with the evidence and has weighed the alternatives. Which … no. Most of the public doesn’t know the first thing about any of these policies — whom they might affect, what they might accomplish, how their costs compare to their benefits.

What most poll-taking members of the public understand about a given climate policy is how it sounds on a poll. So, individually and collectively, they gravitate toward policies that sound like more of good things and less of bad things. A policy that says “build more renewables” sounds good. A policy that says “make less pollution” sounds good. “Make cars more efficient”? Great!

Carbon pricing does not sound like more of a good thing or less of a bad thing. It sounds like more of a bad thing: an additional cost, a penalty, government taking something. It is possible to explain to people, if you have a few minutes, why carbon pricing is an economically efficient way to reduce carbon pollution. But — and this is crucial — you don’t have a few minutes! In this media environment, communicating to the public about policy, you’re lucky to get seconds, or any time at all.

Carbon tax advocates are always saying their policy would be more popular if the public was told what would be done with the tax revenue, that it would be invested in renewables, returned as rebates, or used to reduce another tax (a “tax swap”). The Brookings guys note, “this version of the NSAPOCC did not include any specifications on possible uses of revenue from such a tax, which appears to have some impact on support levels.”

But let’s not fool ourselves. If spending the revenue on renewables is popular, it’s because spending on renewables is popular. If spending the revenue on rebates is popular, it’s because getting checks in the mail is popular. If using the revenue to lower taxes is popular, it’s because lowering taxes is popular. At no point does the tax itself become popular. (The cleverness of bundling unpopular policy with popular policy is often overestimated by the bundlers. All Obama’s major initiatives, from healthcare to cap-and-trade to financial reform, have tried it; the result, generally speaking, is net unpopularity.)

Anyway, this is obviously not an argument against carbon pricing, of which I am a dutiful proponent. But advocates need to squarely grapple with the fact that it sounds unpleasant to the public on first blush, and in the vast majority of cases, there isn’t more than one blush.

Poll in a bubble

Second, it’s always worth remembering that the way the average member of the public is exposed to policy options “in the wild” is radically different from the circumstances of taking a poll.

In a poll, policy options are almost always stripped of social cues and associations, information about costs and trade-offs, and political/historical context. They are presented in isolation: “Do you like this thing?”

That is not at all what happens out in the world. The most salient thing about a policy option for most people is who presents it, who supports it, what their peer groups and tribes think about it. In the overwhelming majority of cases, it is these social cues — not independent weighing of evidence and arguments — that guide public reaction.

The pollsters did get at that a bit. They asked about “federal regulations” to reduce greenhouse gases and got 42 percent approval from Republicans; when they rephrased the same thing as “the Obama Administration’s current policy to use the Clean Air Act,” Republican support fell to 28 percent. When Dems heard Obama’s name next to the policy, their support became more intense. Obama’s name, in an of itself, serves as a heuristic.

And that’s just a hint of the effect social/tribal/partisan cues can have on people’s responses. Out in wild world of media saturation, those few voters who hear about climate policies at all are likely to hear about them from partisan sources, being spun one way or the other. They won’t hear “build more renewables” in isolation, they’ll hear it pitched as new taxes and big-government mandates and higher energy prices. There are messages and counter-messages, facts and counter-facts, and for the average low-information voter, the easiest heuristic to use is party or tribal affiliation (“cultural identity,” in Dan Kahan’s terms). When taking policy surveys, people are deprived of that heuristic.

Poll schmoll

These features of policy polls — their lack of trade-offs and counter-messages, their lack of social context — make them a poor guide to the political economy of energy. High support for a policy in a poll says very little about how that policy will fare when it’s introduced to the political scrum, identified with a particular party and set of advocates, and attacked by prominent figures on the opposing side. For a politician or movement trying to push a policy, high poll numbers can be a rhetorical advantage, a slight boost in the power struggle, but that’s about it. No one should fool themselves that good poll numbers are an indicator of deep or enduring public support.

Filed under: Article, Energy Policy]]>http://grist.org/energy-policy/why-climate-polls-dont-mean-much/feed/0evaluation_checklist.jpgdrgristevaluation_checklist.jpgBrookings poll: public opinion on carbon pricingMe, on the radio, talking about military ‘greening’http://grist.org/energy-policy/me-on-the-radio-talking-about-military-greening/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_energypolicy
http://grist.org/energy-policy/me-on-the-radio-talking-about-military-greening/#commentsWed, 13 Jun 2012 19:58:14 +0000http://grist.org/?p=111755]]>I was on Sea Change Radio last week to talk about the military’s efforts to use less oil — and Republicans’ efforts to stop them. It’s a long bit, nice and meaty at about a half hour, so put it on your iPod for your next bus ride. Here it is:

For years Forest Service land in the East was considered irrelevant when it came to oil and gas leasing. But in the last year and a half, the federal government has leased or scheduled for auction more than 384,000 acres at the request of private bidders, more than 10 times as much land as it had leased in the previous two years.

The agency responsible for such auctions, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), had intended to auction another 90,000 acres in four southern states next week, but protests in Alabama prompted that state’s auctions to be postponed.

In the 3,500-person town of Heflin, Ala., more than 200 people showed up to a May 14 meeting to protest the upcoming lease sale; Rep. Mike D. Rogers (R) sent a letter to BLM director Bob Abbey on May 24 asking that he “immediately reopen the protest filing period” and schedule a public hearing on “the different types on energy extraction that could result” from a lease sale.

Anna Berry, Heflin’s mayor, said that while she would welcome a delay of the auction, “We want the Talladega National Forest taken off the table. We don’t think this will benefit us in any way.”

(Activists: there is probably a message in there somewhere.)

For their part, the fossil fuel companies are just totally perplexed about why people are angry.

“Forest Service areas are multiple use lands,” said Dan Naatz, vice president for federal resources at the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “Our concern is Forest Service areas are being more and more managed like national parks, rather than for multiple use.”

Their concern is that our forest areas are being managed like, you know, forests, and not tree-obstructed portals to money. Got it.

Two large national parks are located near the Marcellus: Shenandoah National Park, 20 miles to the east in Virginia, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, near the southern edge in Tennessee. But there are 33 other national historic sites, national historic parks, scenic river areas, and other areas that also could be affected. Thirteen of those units are actually atop the shale formation, [including] sites honoring the nation’s earliest and most recent history: from the Fort Necessity National Battlefield near Uniontown, site of George Washington’s first military campaign, to the national memorial being built in Somerset, to honor the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who were killed on that ground on September 11, 2001.

This was the argument used in the ANWR debate as well: Some things are more important than money.

Broadly, what’s happened is that both parties now perceive, accurately, that the public is pro-energy. That’s why both parties are grappling for the “all of the above” slogan.

“Pro-energy,” in the U.S. public’s case, means pro more energy, cheaper energy, cleaner energy, and more secure energy. What the public does not like is the trade-offs between those goals. It doesn’t like hearing that it has to give anything up. It doesn’t like hearing about “anti-energy” penalties and prohibitions. And it never likes favoritism, waste, fraud, or generic “spending.”

Given that all energy policies involve trade-offs between various desiderata, a political party’s ability to sell an energy policy to the public hinges on its ability to evoke the right frames. More/cheaper/cleaner/safer energy always polls well. Restraints, added cost, pollution, and foreign-ness (especially Middle Eastern-ness) do not.

This basic dynamic helps explain why Mitt Romney is not dropping Solyndra. Conservatives still see it as one of their bests attacks on Obama. It evokes Big Government spending, cronyism, waste, and failure (i.e., less energy). It tars the rest of Obama’s clean-energy programs, nay his entire agenda, by association.

The dynamic also explains why the right is going after Obama for allegedly (though not actually) leaving coal and other fossil fuels out of his energy strategy. They don’t want him to capture the pro-energy label. “All of the above,” says Romney, means that Obama is “for all sources of energy that come from above the ground, not for things that come below the ground.” He’s not really pro-energy — he’s just pro-some-energy!

The Dem response has two tracks, one I think is politically smart and one I worry is shortsighted and ultimately self-defeating.

The smart response is to double-down on being the pro-energy candidate. That’s what Obama and his cabinet have been doing. They boast about increased oil and natural gas production while also insisting that clean energy innovation is a key part of an “all of the above” strategy — a part that the GOP is leaving out. Republicans aren’t pro-energy — they’re just pro-some-energy!

This is obviously not what any climate hawk would choose. “All of the above” is, as a matter of policy guidance, absurd. Nonetheless, it is aimed squarely at the bulk of public opinion; that’s the battle that must be fought and won.

The other track of the Dem response is less wise. It amounts to, “They did it too!” History is littered with Republicans enthusiastically grubbing for federal support for clean energy (and dirty energy) projects and companies in their home districts. Their sudden indignation at loan guarantees and the like smells of hypocrisy. I’ve indulged in this kind of thing myself on occasion.

You see, Romney helped secure the company a $1.5 million loan when he was governor of Massachusetts, and — here’s the twist — it recently declared bankruptcy! Ha ha! Romney “picked winners” in a failed bid at crony capitalism! I’m rubber, you’re glue, bounces off me and sticks to you.

This is an entirely Beltway-focused line of attack, meant to serve journalists the hypocrisy stories they find irresistible. But at what cost? The intent of the attack, as I hear it, is to show that Republicans generally and Romney specifically were “for it before they were against it” — they’ve flip-flopped on alternative energy, from moderate to far right.

Is that what’s coming across, though? When Konarka is called “Romney’s Solyndra,” I suspect political elites do not hear “Romney’s civic-minded attempt to support clean energy.” They hear scandal and vulnerability. They hear that funding clean-energy companies is a dark secret to be embarrassed about; that government support for clean energy is always cronyism; that solar is not a viable business, even with subsidies.

Konarka has been around since 2001. It was a spin-off from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, using organic chemistry and nanotechnology to make thin, flexible solar panels and spray-on solar dyes. In addition to $170 million worth of private funding, it received $20 million in help from the government, including from the Pentagon, the Bush White House, and, in a splashy 2003 press conference, then-Gov. Romney.

Konarka, like Solyndra, was based on a fateful bet against silicon solar panels. The hope was to innovate more efficient non-silicon alternatives and drive down the price enough to compete with silicon. Lots of companies were involved in that bet, as was quite a bit of bipartisan government support. Then along came China with its huge subsidies, manufacturing silicon panels in massive quantities, driving down the per-unit price, flooding the world with cheap product, and undercutting alternatives.

Eventually, silicon prices will rise and alternatives will become more competitive. When that day comes, we will look back on the demise of our domestic solar innovators with great regret. The fight to support them is no embarrassing secret, whether Romney or Obama did it. It was and is in our country’s best public-health, economic, and security interests. It’s a point of pride. It would be unfortunate if, in their enthusiasm to win a news cycle or two, Democrats and their spin doctors implied otherwise.

Wisconsin is a proud state, with a unique political legacy. Its track record of progressive independence and long-standing commitment to political comity make today’s recall election an aberration, a rare example of a Wisconsin turned against itself — and a rare national example of political turmoil.

The last recall election of a governor in the United States was California’s in 2003, a campaign I worked on. A friend from those days, Clark Williams, is today in his home state of Wisconsin working to turn out voters to recall Walker. I asked him how the two elections compared. “Night and day,” he responded, noting the “venom” that has polluted any rational conversation about the election. It’s a common refrain: A recent poll found that one in three Wisconsinites had stopped talking about politics with someone because of their disagreement. There are reports of physical altercations between supporters of either side. This is not exactly the ebullient, cheese-loving Wisconsin we picture.

Neither are the decisions being made by the governor the ones many state residents expected. The fuse for the recall was lit with Gov. Walker’s move to cut collective bargaining rights for the state’s public sector unions, but that’s not the only gripe state residents have with the governor.

The environmental community has its own (good) reasons for complaint. The Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters is very engaged in the recall, with lawn signs opposing Walker throughout the state and a robust collection of “Failure Files” online outlining Walker’s anti-environment policies. And I mean robust. They’re worth a perusal.

For those pressed for time, or on the way to the polling booth, here’s an overview we assembled: Scott Walker’s Murky, Polluted Environmental Record.

An open door to the Koch brothers

We’ll start with everyone’s favorite bad guys: the Kansas Kochs, the Emperor Palpatines working the controls of a sprawling fossil-fuel empire. If you’re not familiar with the Koch brothers, welcome to planet Earth.

Walker, despite having never met the brothers at that point, was very willing to hear them out. When a prankster from the site Buffalo Beast phoned Walker, pretending to be David Koch, Walker happily discussed fundraising plans, his war against the unions, and how much he’d enjoy being flown out to California for some recreation.

So why would the Kochs care about Wisconsin? Simple. Walker’s willingness to roll back environmental protections that get in the way of the Kochs’ profits.

Take phosphorous. The Kochs own Georgia Pacific paper, the Wisconsin plants of which spent years dumping excess phosphorous into the state’s waterways. In 2010, an appeals court ruled that the public could challenge the permit that allowed the company to do so, while the state’s natural resources board adopted new regulations to cut down on the dumping. Enter Walker. His first budget bill included a passage that would reduce the board’s new limits; a separate announcement put a two-year moratorium on the 2010 phosphorous rules.

Stunting wind power

There’s not a lot of reason to oppose wind power, unless you’re simply making decisions to score political points. Ahem.

To be fair, Walker campaigned on stopping high-speed rail. The campaign owned NoTrain.com, probably because MeHateTrain.com was taken. But that didn’t stop him from asking for $150 million from the federal government for other rail upgrades given that, you know, rail is important to states. Scoring political points by opposing hippie green rail is a good thing, apparently, but that doesn’t mean you have to oppose rail. Or … something?

Facilitating fracking across the country

Wisconsin may not be over the famed Marcellus Shale formation, but that doesn’t mean that Scott Walker can’t get some of that filthy fracking lucre.

Instead, Wisconsin sits atop the remnants of an ancient ocean, the sandstone from which is ideal for fracking. In July of 2011, there were between 22 and 36 sand facilities approved or operating in Wisconsin. Seven months later, there were over 60 mines and 45 processing facilities. Residents who had petitioned the natural resources board to limit the amount of silica allowed in the air around the mines found the board’s Walker-appointed head unresponsive to their concerns. Which was as Walker intended; he explained his choice to head the board as wanting “someone with a chamber-of-commerce mentality.” He got it.

As noted above, these issues are just the tip of the melting iceberg — and for the residents of Wisconsin, just one aspect of why Walker faces such stiff opposition. Clark Williams, my friend in the state, says that no matter the reason people oppose Walker, “the narrative remains the same: recall the governor to end the civil war and restore the Wisconsin Way” — that is, working together for the good of the state.

Including, presumably, breathable air, drinkable water, and a state not pockmarked with unregulated mines.

Filed under: Clean Air, Energy Policy, Fossil Fuels, Natural Gas, Politics, Wind Power]]>http://grist.org/politics/the-dirt-on-wisconsin-governor-scott-walkers-environmental-record/feed/0Walker ObeypbgristScott WalkerThe top five things voters need to know about conservatives and climate changehttp://grist.org/politics/the-top-five-things-voters-need-to-know-about-conservatives-and-climate-change/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_energypolicy
http://grist.org/politics/the-top-five-things-voters-need-to-know-about-conservatives-and-climate-change/#commentsMon, 04 Jun 2012 19:46:11 +0000http://grist.org/?p=109519]]>I’ve seen a recent surge of stories about conservatives and climate change. None of them, oddly, tell voters what they most need to know on the subject. In fact, one of them does the opposite. (Grrrr …)

I respond in accordance with internet tradition: a listicle!

5.Conservatives have a long history of advancing environmental progress. In a column directed to Mitt Romney, Thomas Friedman reels off (one suspects from memory) “the G.O.P.’s long tradition of environmental stewardship that some Republicans are still proud of: Teddy Roosevelt bequeathed us national parks, Richard Nixon the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, Ronald Reagan the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer and George H. W. Bush cap-and-trade that reduced acid rain.” This familiar litany is slightly misleading, attributing to presidents what is mostly the work of Congresses, but the basic point is valid enough: In the 20th century, Republicans have frequently played a constructive role on the environment.

4.There is a conservative approach to addressing climate change. Law professor Jonathan Adler has laid it out in the past and does so again in a much-discussed post over at The Atlantic. He suggests prizes for innovation, reduced regulatory barriers to alternative energy, a revenue-neutral carbon tax, and some measure of adaptation.

It’ll be no surprise to Adler or anyone else that I believe the problem is more severe than he does; solving it — as opposed to just “doing something” — will involve a far more vigorous government role than he envisions. But he makes an eloquent, principled case for the simple notion that “embrace of limited government principles need not entail the denial of environmental claims.” Conservatives could, if they wanted, spend their time arguing for their preferred solutions rather than denying scientific results.

3.There are conservatives who believe in taking action on climate change. Even those dismal polls we’re always talking about find 30 or 40 percent of Republicans acknowledging the threat of climate change. And support for clean air and clean energy policies remains high across the board. Heck, some — OK, a tiny handful of — conservatives are even brave enough to say so in public! It’s really only the hard nut of the GOP, anywhere from 15 to 30 percent, depending on how you measure, that is intensely and ideologically opposed to climate science and solutions alike. Oh, and almost all Republicans in Congress.

1.The Republican establishment has gone nuts on climate change and the environment.

This, more than anything, is what American voters need to know about the Republican Party — not what Republicans used to do, or what one or two outliers say, but what the party as an extant political force is devoted to today. The actually existing GOP wants to dismantle the EPA, open more public land to coal mining and oil drilling, remove what regulatory constraints remain on fossil-fuel companies, slash the budget for clean-energy research and deployment, scrap CAFE and efficiency standards, protect inefficient light bulbs, withdraw from all international negotiations or efforts on climate, and stop the military from using less oil.

I know journalists don’t headline their own pieces. But the piece itself isn’t much better. Take this bit:

Whether the data is inflated or not, the message that may be coming across most to voters is that there really isn’t much difference between Obama’s policies and those likely to be pursued in a Romney administration.

Ah, so the problem is not that Obama and Romney would have similar energy policies. That’s just the message “coming across to most voters.”

Now, if you’re a journalist, and you determine that voters are receiving a wildly incorrect message, what do you do? Do you write a story about their receipt of the incorrect message? Or do you correct the message?

The fact is, Romney would not pursue the same energy policies that Obama is pursuing. At all. Not even a little bit. It’s interesting, I suppose, that Romney used to run a state (and a state party) where moderate energy policy was demanded by voters. But what matters now is that Mitt Romney serves the present-day Republican Party, which has gone crazy.

The notion that Mitt Romney will rediscover some hidden internal moderate and buck the party on this stuff is just a VSP fantasy. Ever since he started running for president (this time around, anyway), he’s been frantically trying to please the right-wing base. Friedman says Romney’s “biggest challenge in attracting independent swing voters will be overcoming a well-earned reputation for saying whatever the Republican base wants to hear.” But self-styled centrists like Friedman have been saying this kind of thing forever and there remains very little indication that any Republican politician faces a tangible cost for pandering to the right.

All we have to do is replace Obama. … We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate.

…

Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared. [my emphasis]

Mitt Romney is well-aware — and if he wasn’t before, the primary taught him — that his job is to “sign the legislation that has already been prepared.” The leadership of the party is in Congress. It has declared skepticism of climate science the de facto party position. It has declared open war on clean energy, efficiency, and environmental protections. It has made clear that it will support fossil-fuel companies at every juncture.

That’s conservatives and climate for you. It’s interesting, intellectually, that there’s a history of green moderation in the party; that there’s a conceptual space where titular conservative principles overlap with climate protection; that many self-identified Republicans aren’t as crazy as their leaders; and that Romney used to pander in a different direction. But what’s relevant to voters who value climate and environmental protection is that they won’t get any under a GOP administration or a GOP Congress.

But then, in a Rolling Stone interview, Obama unexpectedly broke out of his self-imposed silence on climate change, saying he thought climate change would be a campaign issue.

Of course, it would be hard for climate to be a campaign issue if the president doesn’t actually talk about it in public. After all, his challenger Mitt Romney seems unlikely to bring it up, having Etch-a-Sketched his position on that subject many times. And Lord knows that media isn’t itching to talk about climate.

So it was disappointing again once again that on Thursday the president reverted to form in his big speech on energy at TPI Composites, a wind-blade manufacturing plant in Newton, Iowa.

The speech never mentions “climate change” or “global warming” or even “greenhouse gases” or “carbon” or even “pollution”!

It’s a fairly long speech, over half of which is focused on energy, to argue for extending “tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year for clean-energy companies like TPI.” Those credits are certainly worth fighting for since 37,000 wind jobs are at stake — as is leadership in a global industry that will be one of the largest job creators in the coming decades when the world finally starts taking serious action on climate.

But as Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the ranking minority member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said last year:

If you are a science denier, there is no reason for government to invest in clean energy.

Now it may be that in the current political climate, no argument would win. But both climate action and federal clean energy investment are classicwedgeissues that have broad support with the American public, including independents and moderate Republicans, those not aligned with the Tea Party.

Here are the president’s remarks on energy in Iowa:

The fifth item on my “To-Do” list — I’m calling on Congress to extend tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year for clean-energy companies like TPI. (Applause.) Let’s not wait. Let’s do it now. (Applause.)

Many of you know the story of what’s happening here better than I do, but I just want to remind you how far we’ve come. Shortly after I took office, I came to Newton — some of you remember — and we unveiled an all-of-the-above energy strategy for America. We said let’s produce more oil and gas, but let’s also produce more biofuels; let’s produce more fuel-efficient cars; let’s produce more solar and wind power and other sources of clean, renewable energy. And I came to Newton because Newton is helping to lead the way when it comes to building wind turbines.

And since then, our dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year that I’ve been in office — every single year. (Applause.) America is now producing more domestic oil than any time in the last eight years. But we’re also producing more natural gas, and we’re producing more biofuels than any time in our history. And that’s good for the Iowa economy. (Applause.) We’re laying the foundation for some of our nation’s first offshore wind farms. And since I became President, America has nearly doubled the use of renewable energy, like solar power and wind power — we’ve nearly doubled it. (Applause.)

So this country is on the path towards more energy independence. And that’s good for everybody. It’s good for people’s pocketbooks; it’s good for the environment; it’s good for our national security. We don’t want our economy dependent on something that happens on the other side of the world. We don’t want every time there’s a scare about war or some regime change in the Middle East that suddenly everybody here is getting socked and the whole economy is going down.

And the best thing is, in the process, we’re also putting thousands of Americans back to work — because the more we rely on American-made energy, the less oil we buy from other countries, the more jobs we create here at home, the more jobs we create here in Iowa.

So let’s look at the wind industry. It’s so important to Iowa. This industry, thanks in large part to some very important tax credits, has now taken off. The state of Iowa now gets nearly 20 percent of all your electricity from wind — 20 percent. Overall, America now has enough wind capacity to power 10 million homes. So this is an industry on the rise. And as you know, it’s an industry that’s putting people to work. You know this firsthand. There are more wind power jobs in Iowa than any other state. That’s a big deal. (Applause.)

And one of these modern windmills has more than 8,000 different parts — everything from the towers and the blades to the gears, to the electrical switches. And it used to be that almost all these parts were imported. Today, more and more of these parts are being made here in America — right here. (Applause.) We used to have just a few dozen manufacturing facilities attached to the wind industry. Today we have nearly 500 facilities in 43 states employing tens of thousands of American workers — tens of thousands.

So we’re making progress. And you know it better than anybody. I mean, when I was talking to Quinten and Mark and a whole bunch of the other folks who are working here, they reminded me of the experience of working at Maytag and putting your heart and soul into a company and making a great product, and then, suddenly having that company leave, and how hard that was for families and how hard it was for the community. But folks made the transition.

And now, when you look at what’s happening here — 700 to 800 jobs, over $30 million being put back into the community — this gives folks hope. It gives people opportunity. I met some folks who have been in manufacturing for 30 years, but I also met a couple of young folks who were just getting started. And that’s what we’re looking for. Nobody wants a handout. Nobody wants to get something for nothing. But if we’ve got a chance to create energy and create value and put people back to work, why wouldn’t we do that?

So I’m here today because, as much progress as we’ve made, that progress is in jeopardy. If Congress doesn’t act, those tax credits that I mentioned — the ones that helped build up the wind industry, the ones that helped to bring all these jobs to Newton — those tax credits will expire at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t do anything.

If Congress doesn’t act, companies like this one will take a hit. Jobs will be lost. That’s not a guess, that’s a fact. We can’t let that happen. And keep in mind that — and this is something Congress needs to understand — Dave Loebsack understands it, but I want every member of Congress to understand it. These companies that are putting in orders for these amazing blades, they’re making plans now. They’re making decisions now. So if they’re cutting back on their orders, if they’re not confident that the industry is going to be moving at a fast clip and they start reducing orders here, that affects you. You can’t wait for six months. You can’t wait for eight months. You can’t wait for a year to get this done. It’s got to be done now. (Applause.)

So this is a simple thing on Congress’s “To-Do” list — extend these tax credits. Do it now. Every day they don’t act business grows more concerned that they will not be renewed. They’re worried demand for their products is going down, so they start thinking twice about expanding, more cautious about making new investments. They start looking overseas. I was talking to your CEO. We got an opportunity to branch out, but we want to branch out by making the stuff here and then sending it there. We don’t want to branch out by sending the jobs and the investments over there, and then shipping it back to America. That doesn’t make sense. (Applause.) One company that had plans to invest $100 million to build a wind manufacturing plant in Arkansas — and create hundreds of jobs — put those plans on hold.

And by the way, this should not be a partisan issue. There are several Republican governors — including the governor of this state — who are calling on Congress to act. There are members of Congress in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle — including your two senators — who support these tax credits. And that doesn’t happen much in Washington where Democrats and Republicans say they agree on something. So if you agree, why haven’t we gotten it done yet?

This is not just an issue, by the way, for the wind industry. Some of America’s most prominent companies — from Starbucks to Campbell’s Soup — they’re calling on Congress to act because they use renewable energy.

Well, actually many of those companies are calling on Congress to act because they are concerned about global warming, for which renewable energy is a core solution — see “Starbucks: Global Warming Is Hurting Coffee.”

How lame is it that a high-end coffeehouse chain is more comfortable talking about the gravest threat to the nation’s health and well-being than the president of the United States?

In just a few weeks, world leaders are converging on Rio for a landmark “Earth Summit” to talk about sustainability issues — but it’s time for them to stop talking and start doing. And we know where they can begin.

This year our governments will hand nearly hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies to the coal, gas, and oil industries. Instead, they should cut them off.

Cutting fossil fuel subsidies could actually take a giant step towards solving the climate crisis: Phasing out these subsidies would prevent gigatonnes of carbon emissions and help make clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels.

And here’s the thing: This demand is completely reasonable — so reasonable that the leaders of the big countries have already agreed to it. The G20 promised in 2009 that fossil fuel subsidies would be phased out in the “medium term.” But the political power of the corporate polluters scares them, and so no nation has yet followed through.

If we want real action to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, we need to give world leaders a people-powered push as the Rio Summit approaches — and that push starts now with this global call to action.

Why focus on subsidies? Well, remember those pictures we took all over the world a few weeks ago, the ones where hundreds of thousands of people rallied in places wrecked by the drought, flood, fire, and melt that come with climate change? The billions in fossil fuel subsidies handed out to the fossil fuel industry are driving those climate disasters, and it’s time for us, and our political leaders, to connect the dots. Those billions should be spent investing in the world we want — in renewable energy, in efficiency, in public health and education — not sent to the corporate polluters who are super-heating our planet and threatening our future.

How are we going to ensure world leaders make good on their commitment to end fossil fuel subsidies? With a huge global groundswell of citizen pressure. Our friends at Avaaz, the planetary network for social good, are helping to lead this fight — already there are over half a million people signed on. In the U.S., hundreds of thousands of activists are pushing for landmark legislation to remove $113 billion in American fossil fuel subsidies over the next 10 years. But now we need a truly international effort in the lead-up to the Rio Earth Summit — which means enlisting you, and your friends.

After you sign on, please share the campaign with anyone you know who cares about the future. Or, for that matter, anyone who cares about not wasting their tax money by sending it to the richest industry on earth.

We’ll deliver the signatures on June 18, when world leaders arrive for the Earth Summit — in fact, we’ve got big plans brewing for some exciting ways to make sure our message in Rio is unignorable. But first we need you on the list, so please sign on today.

Earlier this week, I wrote about the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee voting through a provision that would kill the U.S. military’s ambitious biofuels program. Last night, the Senate Armed Services Committee did the same, and worse. It voted not only to block purchase of any fuel more expensive than fossil fuels, but to “prohibit the construction of a biofuels refinery or any other facility or infrastructure used to refine biofuels unless the requirement is specifically authorized by law.” Congress micromanaging military energy strategy: What could go wrong?

“But David,” you’re saying, “Democrats have a majority in the Senate. The committee has 14 Democrats and only 12 Republicans. How could this happen?”

Jim Webb (D-Va.)

Check out the list of Dems on the committee. It’s a Who’s Who of cravens, warmongers, and preening faux centrists — some of the most reliably disappointing Dems in the Senate. But last night, only two of them voted against energy security and the best judgment of U.S. military leaders. (It goes without saying that every Republican voted against innovation; it’s now reflexive for them.) The two Dems flipped the final vote [PDF] 13-12 in favor of overriding the military.

Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)

What ostensible Democrats had the vindictiveness, myopia, and dishonor necessary? Why, Jim Webb (Va.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.), of course. Webb has long been a big booster of oil and coal, but voting to constrain military strategy in the name of preventing competitors to fossil fuels is low even for him. Manchin is, by all accounts, just dumb as a box of hair. His close election in 2010 convinced him that to survive he has to lunge right at every opportunity, so he lunges with abandon. He’d probably shoot a pool of algae with a rifle if his brain trust told him to. Above all, he is a servant of the coal industry, which needs to block biofuels as way to bully the military into using expensive and polluting coal-to-liquid fuels.

James Inhofe (R-Okla.)

Webb and Manchin, self-serving jerk and belligerent dunce, find their mirror image in the leaders of this backroom Republican insurgency against U.S. military policy: Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Inhofe’s against clean energy because ARGLE BARGLE. McCain, though, used to be in favor. He used to talk about climate change quite a bit. Proposed a bill or two on the subject, as I recall. But ever since he lost to Obama, he has been increasinglybitter.

John McCain (R-Ariz.)

Now he says, “Adopting a ‘green agenda’ for national defense of course is a terrible misplacement of priorities” and “the president doesn’t understand national security.” National security, to an overcompensating narcissist like John McCain, means war, threatening war, or doing something “tough” to show the world we’re ready for war. He doesn’t see how using less oil fits into that.

It is an unbelievable rebuke and insult to military leaders for Republicans in Congress to do this, but then again, Republicans in Congress have always had more fealty to fossil fuels than the military. Just imagine what will happen after November 2012!

The bill — the Pentagon budget for next year — still has to pass on the floor of the House and Senate, and then go to conference committee, and then to the president’s desk. At any of those junctures, these amendments could be stripped out. But things aren’t looking good so far.

Filed under: Article, Energy Policy, Politics, Renewable Energy]]>http://grist.org/energy-policy/senate-republicans-join-house-in-second-guessing-military-leaders-on-biofuels/feed/0facepalm-soldier-militarydrgristfacepalm-soldier-militarywebb-140manchin-140inhofe-140mccain-140Republicans try to force the military to use dirty energy it doesn’t wanthttp://grist.org/politics/republicans-try-to-force-the-military-to-use-dirty-energy-it-doesnt-want/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_energypolicy
http://grist.org/politics/republicans-try-to-force-the-military-to-use-dirty-energy-it-doesnt-want/#commentsWed, 23 May 2012 18:06:34 +0000http://grist.org/?p=107178]]>Photo by the U.S. Army.

The U.S. military recognizes that dependence on fossil fuels is a threat to U.S. strategic influence and its own operational effectiveness. With that in mind, it’s trying to make itself lighter and leaner, reducing energy consumption at bases and on the battlefield while working to develop fuel alternatives for its ship and plane fleets. Republicans have been quietly grumbling about this for a while; now they are openly opposing it. The GOP wastes no opportunity to boast of “supporting the troops,” but that support apparently ends where Big Oil contributions begin.

Let’s look at a few examples, shall we?

GOP tries to block use of cleaner fuels

Last week, the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee proposed a new Pentagon budget. Tucked away inside it was a provision that would prohibit the Department of Defense from buying any alternative fuels that cost more than conventional fossil fuels. TPM has the story.

Slate’s Fred Kaplan laments that this provision would kill the $12 million “Green Strike Group” program the Navy is running, which would field a strike group running entirely on biofuels (and a nuclear-powered carrier) for a naval exercise in June. The Navy hopes to have an entire “Great Green Fleet” in the water by 2016.

But the language is far broader than that. It would effectively prohibit military field-testing of any non-fossil fuel. After all, if alternatives were already cheaper than fossil fuels, they wouldn’t be alternatives. The Air Force couldn’t experiment with fuel blends for its jets. The Army couldn’t fuel its “Green Warrior Convoy.” This provision would explicitly ban the military from being an instrument of energy innovation.

GOP tries to push use of dirtier fuel

But wait! There is one expensive alternative fuel that congressional Republicans support. You see, Section 526 of 2007’s Energy Independence and Security Act prohibits the military from buying fuel that is more carbon-intensive than crude oil. Earlier this month, Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) offered an amendment to an appropriations bill, later passed by the House, that would bar the military from enforcing Sec. 526.

Why, you ask? “Placing limits on federal agencies’ fuel choices,” says Flores, “is an unacceptable precedent to set in regard to America’s energy policy and independence.”

Yes, I’ll let that irony sink in a moment.

Why are Republicans so keen to get rid of Sec. 526? Are there dirtier-but-cheaper fuels the military could be using?

Well, no. Instead, Republicans have seized on the idea of using the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert coal to liquid fuel (a technology made famous by Hitler — don’t tell the Heartland Institute). Building a plant to do this requires enormous capital investment, running one requires enormous operational and maintenance investments, and the result is … fuel more expensive than oil. This is to say nothing of the fact that it requires mining and transporting coal on the front end and releases up to 2.5 times as much CO2 as oil when burned.

So, let’s pause and review. The Republican position on military fuel choices is as follows: Congressional restrictions are an “unacceptable precedent” when they prohibit dirtier fuels, but necessary when they prohibit cleaner fuels. Also, it is unacceptable for the military to pay more for cleaner fuels, but necessary for it to pay more for dirtier fuel.

If you were cynical, you’d almost think that the issue had nothing to do with Congress’s relationship with the military, or with costs. You’d almost think Republicans just support fossil fuels and oppose clean energy, no matter the context.

On Thursday, President Obama will visit TPI Composites, a wind manufacturer in Newton, Iowa (population, 15,254). There, he will reiterate his support for the Production Tax Credit (PTC), a federal support program that has helped drive wind’s rapid expansion in the U.S. The PTC is now in peril, as Congress appears unlikely to renew it when it expires at the end of this year. The loss of the PTC would put tens of thousands of current jobs — and almost 100,000 future jobs [PDF] — at risk.

Newton’s experience is illustrative, so let’s recount a little history.

Vulture capitalism

Newton used to be the “washing machine capital of the world,” with five washing machine manufacturers. One by one they closed, until there was only Maytag, which at its height employed around 4,000 Newtonians. Then, in 2006, Maytag was the subject of a bidding war. On one side was Chinese manufacturer Haier Group, in partnership with none other than former Romney employer Bain Capital (Romney was gone by then). On the other was Whirlpool.

Whirlpool won, but it would have been vulture capitalism either way. The Maytag plant was summarily shuttered and the jobs sent out of state.

Unsurprisingly, these developments have left wind power with broad bipartisan support in Iowa. Republican Gov. Terry Branstad has defended the wind industry and the PTC against attacks from the right. Even Iowa Rep. Steve King (R), one of the most notoriously bigoted right-wing nutbags in all of Congress, has said, “Now is the time for stability in the wind industry, and the PTC offers just that.” When they were in the state, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, and Thaddeus McCotter (remember him?) all posed next to a wind-turbine blade made by none other than TPI Composites, to show their support for the industry.

(Side bar: A new analysis [PDF] shows that “adding more wind power to the electric grid could reduce wholesale market prices by more than 25 percent in the Midwest region by 2020.”)

But Romney hates wind

Despite support from Iowa Republicans for wind (and despite that turbine photo-op), Mitt Romney has expressed only contempt for the industry. He would end federal support for solar and wind alike, technologies that, he has said, “make little sense for the consuming public but great sense only for the companies reaping profits from taxpayer subsidies.” (Y’know, like Iowa’s own TPI Composites, the 700 people it employs, and the town it saved.)

And here he is in Colorado, smirking about the wind industry losing 10,000 jobs since 2009. That’s true, of course — it’s gone from a high of 85,000 to around 75,000 now — but mainly because the industry is nervous about the future of the PTC. Which Romney wants to kill for good. Thus insuring far greater job losses.

The fact is, if Republicans win Congress and Romney becomes president, all federal support for clean energy will dry up and Newton, along with other Midwestern towns that have been revitalized by wind, will suffer yet another devastating blow. I wonder if Iowa voters — sitting in one of 2012’s most important swing states — were thinking about that when Romney came to the state recently to lecture about the deficit.

At a time when we have more than $15 trillion in national debt, American taxpayers are set to give away over $110 billion to the oil, gas, and coal industries over the next decade. Clearly, we cannot afford it. The five largest oil companies made over $1 trillion in profits in the last decade, with some paying no federal income taxes for part of that time, so they certainly do not need it.

It is time we end this corporate welfare in the form of massive subsidies and tax breaks [PDF] to hugely profitable fossil-fuel corporations. It is time for Congress to support the interests of the taxpayer instead of powerful special interests like the oil and coal industries. That is why I joined with Rep. Keith Ellison to introduce legislation in the Senate and the House called the End Polluter Welfare Act. Our proposal is backed by grassroots and public-interest organizations 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and many others.

It is immoral that some in Congress advocate savage cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while those same people vote to preserve billions in tax breaks for ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in America. It is equally obscene that as those members of Congress fight to continue never-ending fossil-fuel subsidies worth tens of billions, they are working overtime to deny a one-year extension for key sustainable energy incentives for the emerging wind and solar industries. Instead of passing strong legislation to help reverse global warming, Congress continues giveaways to the 200-year-old fossil-fuel industry even as that industry’s carbon pollution wreaks devastation on our planet. Enough is enough.

While there have been attempts to remove some of these fossil-fuel subsidies in the past, our legislation is the most comprehensive ever put together in that it would end all of the tax breaks, special financing arrangements, and federal research support for fossil fuels. Our bill would make sure the fossil-fuel industry pays its fair share by reforming royalties for drilling or mining on public lands or in federal waters. It would also end the loopholes that allow tar-sands pipeline operators to avoid paying the oil-spill cleanup tax.

It is important that the American people understand just how egregious these fossil-fuel handouts [PDF] are:

A tax deduction for an oil spill? We all remember the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. What is less well-known is that BP is claiming a $9.9 billion tax deduction on the money it had to spend cleaning up its own mess and paying for damages it caused. That is absurd.

They manufacture what? Coal and oil lobbyists added fossil fuels to a bill aimed at helping American manufacturers, so those industries too could claim “manufacturing” tax deductions. The added cost for taxpayers: $12 billion over the next 10 years.

Good enough for Big Oil, but not clean energy. Most of us have not heard about Master Limited Partnerships. These special financing arrangements allow oil and gas investors to avoid paying certain corporate income taxes, but they’re not available to clean energy businesses. Ending this fossil-fuel loophole would not only start to level the playing field for clean energy investment, but would save the government an estimated $2.4 billion over the next decade.

Free federal oil and gas leases? Fossil-fuel corporations are supposed to pay the government fair market royalties in exchange for the right to drill on public lands or in federal waters. But thanks to a loophole in federal law, some oil and gas corporations drilling in the Gulf of Mexico pay zero in royalties. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office estimated this could cost taxpayers up to $53 billion over the life of these loophole leases.

These are just a few examples of the obscene subsidies that the oil, gas, and coal industries reap from the government year after year. We know that with the enormous sums these industries spend on lobbying and campaign contributions — no doubt made worse by the new era of unlimited corporate campaign spending ushered in by Citizens United — passing a bill like our End Polluter Welfare Act will not be easy. But we know too that all across our country, and across the political spectrum, the American people are angry and frustrated with a government beholden to big-money interests. They want their elected officials to stand up for the needs of working families and our environment, not the powerful special interests.

While it is true that the fossil-fuel industry has a virtually unlimited supply of money and lobbyists in Washington, D.C., they still can be defeated. If the American people stand up and demand that the fossil-fuel industry and other corporations pay their fair share in taxes, we can defeat them. If the American people demand that we transform our energy system away from polluting fossil fuels, and to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, we can defeat them. With your help, we can defeat them. Join this fight by signing up to be a citizen cosponsor of this legislation.

To understand the promise of renewable energy for the U.S. military, it helps to start as far from Washington, D.C., as possible. (This is true for most forms of understanding.) Start far from the politicians, even from the military brass, far from the rooms where big-money decisions are made, far out on the leading edge of the conflict, with a small company of Marines in Afghanistan’s Sangin River Valley.

Not long ago, for a three-day mission out of a forward operating base in Afghanistan, each Marine would have humped between 20 and 35 pounds of batteries. One of the reasons Marines are so lethal in such small numbers today is that they are constantly connected by radios and computers. But radios and computers require a constant supply of batteries, brought by convoy over some of the deadliest roads on earth and then piled on the backs of Marines in highly kinetic environments.

“We stayed out for three weeks,” he said, “and didn’t need a battery resupply once.”

This is a small example, of no great economic or geostrategic significance, yet it carries a profound lesson. It is a lesson that, in the unfolding age of energy insecurity, can be expressed as something like a universal law: reduced dependence on energy supply lines means greater autonomy, flexibility, and effectiveness.

The U.S. Marine Corps prides itself on being the U.S. military’s ship-to-shore expeditionary force — light, fast, and lethal, able to deploy quickly and operate autonomously in hostile or austere circumstances. So they have been the most sensitive to the chafing restrictions of what Gen. James Mattis, a Marine commander in the first Iraq war, famously called the “tether of fuel.”

That tether, the convoys crisscrossing Iraq and Afghanistan, not only slows the Marines and restricts their range of motion, it also gets them killed — one killed or wounded for each 50 convoys or so. And it is wildly expensive. By the time fuel is convoyed up through Pakistan or down through Russia, over the Hindu Kush mountains or across the Amu Darya river, and out from the big bases to the forward bases, sometimes on helicopter, fuel that costs the Marines $3 a gallon at the pump can reach a “fully burdened cost” of as high as $400 a gallon. It’s fair to say that Marines running diesel generators at forward operating bases in Afghanistan are using some of the most expensive fuel in the world.

With that in mind, Marines are field testing insulated tents, portable solar panels, LED lights, and systems to purify and cool local water. I reported on their efforts for a story in Outside last year, and every source I spoke to had the same thing to say: There may be some grumbling about the energy effort in the middle ranks, from officers set in their ways, but among young Marines on the front lines, and among the brass in the top ranks, there is nothing but enthusiasm.

It isn’t about “greening” anything or cooling the climate. “Other people are busy saving the planet; this is about saving Marine lives,” Col. Bob Charette, director of the Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Office, said recently. “I’d kiss a polar bear if it meant getting one Marine off an IED-filled highway.”

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has said that both the Navy and Marines will reduce fossil-fuel consumption by half by 2020. The Army and Air Force have also adopted aggressive goals. The military gets it: Reduced dependence on energy supply lines means greater autonomy, flexibility, and effectiveness. It’s not only true in the theater of war. It’s true for the great military fleets at sea and in the sky. It’s true for military bases in the U.S. or across the world, dependent on civilian power grids subject to attacks or blackouts.

And it’s not just true for the military. In a time of rising fossil-fuel prices and increasingly apparent climate dangers, the tether of fuel binds all of us — homes, businesses, communities, and whole economies — to a future of vulnerability and instability. Using less energy and generating more of our own is about more than dollars spent or saved. It’s about self-determination. That makes for a more effective military and a more secure, productive society.

So, to summarize: You, the U.S. taxpayer, just leased another huge chunk of your land to Peabody Coal at $1.11 per ton of coal. Peabody will strip-mine that land and take the coal to China, where it will sell it for over $100 per ton. Peabody pockets enormous profits*, the U.S. taxpayer gets devastated land, and China accelerates global warming.

And it’s all being pushed through by the Obama administration.

Happy Friday.

——

* Now, obviously, $1.11 per ton is not the sum total of Peabody’s costs. They also pay BLM some production royalties and rental fees. And of course it costs them money to mine the coal and ship it to China! Nevertheless, the notion that $1.11 per ton is “fair market value” for coal that Peabody is going to tell for over $100 a ton is a sad joke.

Filed under: Article, Coal, Energy Policy, Politics]]>http://grist.org/coal/peabody-coal-pays-u-s-taxpayers-1-11-per-ton-of-coal-sells-it-to-china-for-123/feed/0coal-protest-flickr-Takverdrgristcoal-protest-flickr-TakverEIA: coal exportsA national clean energy standard is good policy — and good politicshttp://grist.org/energy-policy/a-national-clean-energy-standard-is-good-policy-and-good-politics/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_energypolicy
http://grist.org/energy-policy/a-national-clean-energy-standard-is-good-policy-and-good-politics/#commentsThu, 17 May 2012 20:01:45 +0000http://grist.org/?p=106396]]>A version of this article originally appeared on Climate Progress.

Do anti-clean energy senators have any idea what Americans want? If Thursday morning’s hearing on the Clean Energy Standard (CES) Act of 2012 is any guide, they don’t. The truth is that Americans support a clean energy target for this country. Senators should listen to the American public and pass this bill.

If that’s the biggest question, then it’s time for the Senate to pass the Clean Energy Standard Act, because the American people want more clean energy.

According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans think that developing clean energy sources should be a bigger priority than expanding oil and coal production. This is exactly what a CES would do. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) testified Thursday [PDF] that the Clean Energy Standard Act would lead to increased electricity generation from all low-carbon sources of power, including renewables, nuclear, and natural gas. While the exact mix of those resources is impossible to predict, wind and solar power increase dramatically in every scenario the EIA has analyzed.

That wasn’t the end of Murkowski’s misunderstanding of what the American people want. She went on to say to the witnesses, “I think this is where the consuming public is coming from: If this is going to save me money, let’s talk about it; if it’s not, let’s not talk about it.”

In fact, that’s not where the consuming public is coming from. Researchers from Harvard and Yale have found that Americans would be willing to pay an extra $162 per year to get 80 percent of their electricity from clean sources. Conveniently, that’s exactly what the CES would do, so we know that Murkowski’s presumption about what the public wants is wrong. It’s also important to remember that while the EIA predicts small electricity rate increases from the CES, Center for American Progress’ analysis of state renewable energy standards shows that there’s no evidence that these policies increase rates.

Unfortunately, Murkowski’s thinking is stopping the Senate from passing this common-sense legislation that would clean our air, help prevent catastrophic climate change, and drive investment that can reinvigorate our economy.

Some senators are siding with the American people, though. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who originally introduced this proposal and is leading the fight for a CES, understands why this bill is critical. His opening statement is a welcome contrast to Murkowski’s:

The purpose of the Clean Energy Standard is to establish a national standard for electricity to make sure that we leverage the clean resources we have today and provide a continuing incentive to develop the cheaper, cleaner energy technologies of the future. By design, it would drive continued diversity in our sources of energy, and it would also allow every region to deploy clean energy using resources appropriate to that region. The Clean Energy Standard does this in a way that is intended to support home-grown innovation and manufacturing, and keep America competitive in the global clean energy economy.

Using cheaper, clean energy technologies to support innovation and manufacturing is something that everyone should get behind. That’s why the Center for American Progress (CAP) has supported this bill from the start. As Kate Gordon, CAP’s vice president for energy policy, said when the bill was first introduced:

Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-N.M.) proposal would be a tremendous contribution to the United States’ clean energy economy. By prioritizing low-carbon energy sources, a clean energy standard would drive investments in renewable energy and other low-carbon energy infrastructure that will put Americans back to work while also improving our air quality and reducing the likelihood of catastrophic climate change. This bill will also create stable demand that’s critical for growing our domestic clean energy manufacturing base, and will help spur new innovations in the low-carbon energy technologies of the future.

There are legitimate policy questions about the design of this bill. It would be good to find a way to include more support for energy efficiency, although there are technical challenges with treating efficiency as a resource just like power generation. And Duke Energy explained Thursday [PDF] why it’s afraid that the CES could lead to overreliance on natural gas. These issues can and should be dealt with while still supporting the bill.

The Clean Energy Standard Act is not just good policy, it’s good politics.

Filed under: Article, Energy Policy, Politics]]>http://grist.org/energy-policy/a-national-clean-energy-standard-is-good-policy-and-good-politics/feed/0Thumbs up on green backgroundgristadminThumbs up on green backgroundBig Coal’s new anti-Obama ad reeks of desperationhttp://grist.org/coal/big-coals-new-anti-obama-ads-reek-of-desperation/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_energypolicy
http://grist.org/coal/big-coals-new-anti-obama-ads-reek-of-desperation/#commentsThu, 17 May 2012 11:20:08 +0000http://grist.org/?p=106151]]>The U.S. coal industry is flailing. Utilities are stampeding from coal to natural gas and coal mining companies are seeing their stock prices plunge. The industry is responding the way it always has to threat: blaming government regulation and pouring money into influence peddling.

Judging from their latest efforts, however, they have very little to work with. The latest flail is to try to make a big deal out of the fact that the Obama administration recently added a bit on “clean coal” to its “all of the above” energy page. It’s Energywebpagegate! Or something.

From such thin threads is America’s Power attempting to weave an attack:

This aims for pathos but reaches only as far as pathetic. Even putting aside the absurdity of trying to make a website update into matter of Great Significance, the attack rests on a crude bait-and-switch that only the most gullible Tea Partier is going to miss.

In his campaign, Obama talked regularly about “clean coal.” By that he meant the common understanding of the term: coal plants that capture and sequester their CO2 emissions.

The EPA regulations decried in the middle section of the video do not affect “clean coal” in any way. They impose emission rules on dirty coal — coal plants that do not control their mercury, SO2, and/or CO2 emissions. It is dirty coal plants that are retiring right now, not “clean coal.”

The administration added a bit on clean coal to its website, but it only serves to call coal’s bluff. All actually existing coal in the U.S. is dirty. If the industry can actually build “clean coal,” why, it won’t be affected by EPA regulations! In fact, Obama’s own stimulus bill set aside $3.4 billion help “clean coal” along.

The ad speaks to the coal lobby’s desperation to blur the difference between clean and dirty. When it began, America’s Power touted itself as a “clean coal” group. But as this ad campaign makes clear, that was always a fig leaf, a bit of rhetorical slight-of-hand. It’s just a lobbying group for the coal industry.

Coal with CCS remains fantastically expensive and, in the U.S., rarer than a untelevised Kardashian. In terms of U.S. electricity markets, it is a non-entity. Its use in politics, by Obama and the coal industry alike, is as a symbolic gesture.

In reality, what we suffer from in the U.S. is dozens of old, dirty, unregulated coal plants that are sickening and killing people and accelerating climate change. Obama hasn’t — politically speaking, can’t — come out explicitly in favor of getting rid of them. But he’s never spoken in favor of them either, and his EPA has done more than any EPA in decades to finally clean them up. That’s entirely separate from his support for the “clean coal” unicorn.

So, to summarize: Obama is for “clean coal” and against unregulated dirty coal. There is no inconsistency, no flip-flop or backtrack, no hypocrisy. It’s not even that complicated.

If the hearing were being used as a chance to objectively assess where the industry stands, that would be one thing. But the title of the meeting gave away the real political intent: “The Obama Administration’s Green Energy Gamble: What Have All The Taxpayer Subsidies Achieved?”

Actually, those green energy investments have yielded substantial returns. While the political grandstanding goes on in the House of Representatives, here are five important things you should know about how promotion of clean energy has supported American businesses and consumers:

1. The 1603 grant program supported up to 75,000 jobs and 23,000 renewable energy projects during the height of the recession. When the recession hit, it was very difficult for project developers to find banks that were willing to utilize tax credits. So a cash grant program was created to give companies an easier way to finance projects. While it’s very difficult to know the exact influence of the grant on each project, the program played a major role in maintaining momentum — helping support $25 billion in gross economic activity, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

2. The production tax credit helps leverage up to $20 billion in private investment annually. With this key tax credit in place, the wind industry has dropped costs by 90 percent over the last few decades. It’s helped states like Iowa reach 20 percent wind penetration — bringing that state over 215 businesses that support 5,000 workers. Across the rest of the U.S., the entire industry supports 75,000 jobs, with 30,000 in manufacturing. However, up to 37,000 of those jobs could be at risk due to congressional lawmakers’ inability to extend the tax credit.

3. The loan guarantee program is expected to cost $2 billion less than budgeted. This program has gotten a black eye due to the bankruptcies of a few companies — most famously Solyndra — that received guarantees. But according to John McCain’s national finance chair, Herb Allison, the cost to taxpayers will likely be far less than initially thought. In fact, over the last 20 years of experience, the U.S. government has shown a knack for managing risk — with loans and loan guarantee programs only costing tax payers $0.94 for every $100 invested.

4. Home weatherization grew 1,000 percent from April to June of 2011, creating 14,800 jobs. After a slow ramp-up, efficiency programs supported by the stimulus package have helped weatherize hundreds of thousands of homes. In addition to supporting the retrofits of individual homes, the Obama administration has supported the Better Buildings Initiative, a program that has leveraged billions of private dollars to upgrade more than 4 billion square feet of public and private buildings in the next two years. That’s enough demand to support over 100,000 jobs.

5. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) has supported dozens of potentially groundbreaking technologies in advanced materials, renewable fuels, electricity generation, waste heat, and battery storage. Helping enhance America’s lead in technological innovation, ARPA-E — initially funded through the stimulus package — has helped inventors, companies, and university labs boost their work. This program has immense bipartisan support for promoting the “innovative research that makes America great and has fueled our economic growth for generations.”

Despite these successes, Republicans continue milking the Solyndra bankruptcy for an election-year story that doesn’t hold up — dragging the rest of the clean energy industry into the mud.

The sector has gone through some high-profile shake-ups and bankruptcies, so it’s the duty of lawmakers to understand how taxpayer dollars are being deployed. That’s a supportable endeavor. But holding yet another hearing to lambast the president for a so-called “gamble” in clean energy isn’t productive for anyone.

Filed under: Article, Energy Policy, Politics, Renewable Energy]]>http://grist.org/energy-policy/dont-believe-the-hype-five-things-you-should-know-about-clean-energy-investments/feed/0five-5-Flickr-rustman.jpggristadminfive-5-Flickr-rustman.jpgBuzzword decoder: Your election-year guide to environmental catchphraseshttp://grist.org/election-2012/buzzword-decoder-your-election-year-guide-to-environmental-catchphrases/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_energypolicy
http://grist.org/election-2012/buzzword-decoder-your-election-year-guide-to-environmental-catchphrases/#commentsTue, 15 May 2012 11:08:22 +0000http://grist.org/?p=97959]]>Don’t expect the environment to be in the spotlight in political campaigns this year. The economy will be the star in 2012, with the culture wars singing backup.

Still, environmental issues are getting talked about, often obliquely as part of larger discussions about energy — though the words don’t always mean what you might think they mean. And the words politicians don’t say can tell you as much as the words they do.

Here’s a guide to energy and environmental buzzwords you’ll be hearing, or not, this election year:

Gas prices
Republicans thought they’d get a lot of mileage out of this phrase, but now it looks like it might not get them too far. When gas prices were trending upward earlier this year, Republicans went all out blaming Obama and the Democrats. Now that gas prices have come back down, the Republican messaging has gotten muddled. Still, the GOP is not quite ready to drop the issue.

Big Oil
Speaking of, “Big Oil” is a phrase you’ll only hear from Democrats this year. Obama’sparticularlyfond of it. Republicans don’t have a great rejoinder, as Big Solar and Big Wind don’t yet exist.

Keystone
If you hear a politician say the word “Keystone” this year, you can bet s/he’s a Republican.

Republicans, on the other hand, are doing everything in their power to keep the issue in the news — and they’re getting help from pipeline builder TransCanada, which recently reapplied for a permit. The GOP argues that Obama’s unwillingness to rubber-stamp the pipeline is hampering the economy and making America less energy secure — even though those argumentsarefalse. Currently the GOP is trying to force Keystone approval into a big transportation bill.

Many Democrats, meanwhile, are walking on eggshells around this one. They don’t want to anger the green wing of the base, which showed its might by elevating Keystone into a national issue last year. But they also don’t want to be painted as anti-job or tick off any of the unions that want to help build the pipeline (the labor community is split on the issue). A poll released by Hart Research in February suggested that the Keystone fight is winnable for Dems if they articulate a clear message — say, that the pipeline would create as few as 50 permanent jobs, according [PDF] to researchers at Cornell University, and that much of the oil it transports would be shipped overseas. But savvy, strategic messaging is not a Democratic strong suit of late.

Solyndra
If you hear a politician say the word “Solyndra” this year, you can know s/he’s a Republican.

Republicans will keep harping on the bankruptcy of solar company Solyndra, which got a federal loan guarantee of more than half a billion dollars. They say it shows the folly of the federal government trying to pick winners in the energy sector and boost the economy through stimulus spending, and recentads from GOP groups go further with salacious (and bogus) Solyndra-related charges. Romney slipped up earlier this year and said “Solyndra” when he meant “Keystone,” betraying the fact that Republicans see both issues primarily as cudgels with which to bash Obama.

Obama has been defending his administration’s Solyndra investment, albeit without mentioning the company’s name. His first TV ad of the campaign season went after his Solyndra critics. In March, he said, “Each successive generation recognizes that some technologies are going to work; some won’t. Some companies will fail; some companies will succeed,” echoing language from his State of the Union address in January. Other Dems have been less sure-footed in their responses to the Solyndra mess. Expect them to avoid the topic like the plague.

Clean energy
“Green jobs” is soooo 2008. “Clean energy” is now the phrase du jour if you want to talk about shifting to an economy based on renewables and efficiency — and so far, only Democrats do.

Obama is running hard on this theme: “I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy,” he’s saidmore than once. The president regularly visits cleantech companies and highlights the economic promise of cleantech jobs.

Republicans counter by talking about “energy jobs” — the kind that come from building pipelines and mining coal and fracking. “Drill baby drill” talk continues to resonate with the GOP base, while right-wing groups are trying to spark an anti-wind movement. Still, a handful of Republicans from states with big wind potential are calling for extension of a wind-energy tax credit that’s set to expire at the end of the year, recognizing that clean energy can be a job creator.

Pollafterpoll finds widespread support from voters across the spectrum for renewable power, so you’d think smart politicians would try to tap that vein.

Climate
In 2008, from the presidential candidates on down the ticket, Democrats and Republicans alike offered up plans for combating climate change. But you won’t be hearing “climate change” or “global warming” in many of this year’s stump speeches — and that absence speaks volumes.

President Obama recently told Rolling Stone that he thinks climate will become a campaign issue, but even he doesn’t seem to believe it. He didn’t even bother to mention climate change in his most recent Earth Day address. The president thinks he’ll reach more independents by talking about clean energy, energy innovation, and an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy (snatched right from the Republican playbook). Many of his fellow Democrats are following his lead and shunting climate into the shadows, still smarting from the ignominious death of climate legislation in 2010.

Mitt Romney doesn’t like to talk about climate change either because he’s flip-flopped on the issue. Most other Republican politicians bring up climate change only if they want to voice their skepticism. Former GOP Rep. Bob Inglis (S.C.) is launching a new group to promote conservative solutions to climate change, but don’t expect that effort to gain much traction this year.

Filed under: Article, Cleantech, Climate Change, Climate Policy, Election 2012, Energy Policy, Fossil Fuels, Green Jobs, Politics, Renewable Energy, Solar Power, Wind Power]]>http://grist.org/election-2012/buzzword-decoder-your-election-year-guide-to-environmental-catchphrases/feed/0clean-energy-beelisahymasbee-haviorClean energy as culture warhttp://grist.org/politics/clean-energy-as-culture-war/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_energypolicy
http://grist.org/politics/clean-energy-as-culture-war/#commentsMon, 14 May 2012 20:44:51 +0000http://grist.org/?p=105522]]>Not that long ago, some folks were arguing that clean energy — unlike climate change, which had been irredeemably stained by partisanship (eww!) — would bring people together across ideological lines. Persuaded by the irrefutable wisdom of wonks, we would join hands across the aisle to promote common-sense solutions. It wouldn’t be partisan, it would be … post-partisan.

Some day, I will stop mocking the people who said that. But not today. The error is an important one and it is still made regularly, especially by hyper-educated U.S. elites. They think clean energy is different from climate change, that it won’t get sucked into the same culture war. They are wrong.

On clean energy, the material/financial aspects of the conflict are the easiest to understand. Wind, solar, and the rest threaten the financial dominance and political influence of dirty energy. Last week, the Guardianbroke the story of a confidential memo laying out a plan to demonize and discredit clean energy, meant to coordinate the plans/messages of several big right-wing super PACs funded by dirty-energy money.

At the bottom of that same piece, though, is one of the best expressions I’ve ever seen of the cultural and psychological aspects of the conflict. Witness:

Opposing Obama’s energy policies was a natural fit for conservatives, said Marita Noon, a conservative activist from New Mexico who was at the meeting. “The American way, what made CostCo and Walmart a success, is to use more and pay less. That’s the American way.” The president’s green policies however were the reverse, she said.

“President Obama wants us to pay more and use less.”

Not for the first time, it strikes me that conservatives understand the stakes of this struggle much better than liberals and centrists do, especially at a gut level. They’re on the wrong side of it, but at least they get it.

Photo by Walmart.

Noon is more or less correct: The American Way has been to carelessly consume high quantities of cheap energy, much of it embedded in disposable plastic crap at Walmart. Conservative leaders are telling their flock that there are endless deposits of fossil fuels all around them, if only those pesky Democrats and their regulations would get out of the way. The message is that the American way of life can continue forever, indeed that it is our patriotic birthright, but that Democrats want to take it from them. That goes deeper than energy. It’s about home and hearth.

And Noon is right that the alternative — barely hinted at by Obama’s policies, but sure to come into sharper relief in coming years — is to use much less, and more expensive, energy. You and I know that even if the per-unit price of energy goes up, consumer bills can go down, through efficiency. You and I know that it’s possible to use less energy while still enjoying the same high quality of life. You and I know that there’s no other choice, that cheap, abundant fossil fuels are a thing of the past.

But Noon and her ideological cohort are hearing otherwise. They’re hearing that American abundance, the bounty available to even the poorest Americans at Walmart, is under threat. They’re hearing that Democrats want to make America, the land of plenty, into Europe, the (imagined) land of tiny cars, cramped apartments, and high prices. Again, that’s about more than prices or watts. It’s about cultural identity.

Clean energy supporters can try, if they want, to convince people like Noon that clean energy can offer the same abundance — “use more and pay less” — that fossil fuels offered, through the magic of technology or innovation or whatever. But it’s dishonest. Reducing emissions enough to substantially slow climate change will inevitably involve being more judicious and intelligent in our energy use. Profligate, heedless consumption of disposable crap is going to have to be reined in. That will mean changing habits and land-use patterns. Insofar as those habits and land-use patterns are viewed as constitutive of a “way of life,” many will view that as a threat.

Remember, unlike wonks, average folk don’t think in terms of discrete political “issues.” They think in terms of broad cultural associations and identities. For the conservative base — about which I’ve written many times, see especially here — the issue of energy is wrapped up in a way of life that they view as under threat from multiple directions.

As I’ve said before, it’s unlikely that such people can be persuaded with evidence and reason. What they will eventually do is die off. In the meantime, the job is to define a new American way of life for young people, so when they take over they won’t view Walmart as akin to church.

Filed under: Article, Energy Policy, Politics, Renewable Energy]]>http://grist.org/politics/clean-energy-as-culture-war/feed/0walmart-storedrgristwalmart-storeYet another ridiculous billboard campaign featuring psychoshttp://grist.org/list/yet-another-ridiculous-billboard-campaign-featuring-psychos/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_energypolicy
http://grist.org/list/yet-another-ridiculous-billboard-campaign-featuring-psychos/#commentsMon, 14 May 2012 14:06:03 +0000http://grist.org/?p=105390]]>Apparently the political discourse in this country is irrational enough that one anti-green billboard campaign featuring megalomaniacs will not satisfy our craving for crazy. No, there have to be two billboard campaigns in one month that cast aspersions on good ideas by associating them with crazy dudes that no one likes.

We present to you:

These guys hate “energy independence”! If you don’t recognize him, the guy on the left is Ed Perlmutter, a representative from Colorado. Barack Obama, we assume you’re good with. Oh, and that one’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Iranian leader known for being crazy. He’s crazy! Therefore, since he is on this very badly designed billboard with those two (shudder) Democrats, they must be crazy, too.

Never mind that energy independence is basically a made-up idea: Oil prices are determined by the global market, people! Also, gas prices are dropping now, so if Obama is conspiring to keep them high, he’s doing a terrible job, billboard. (But actually he’s not! Because prices are dropping due to global trends, not because of anything happening in U.S. politics!) It’s too early on Monday for this kind of stupid. Excuse us while we go have another cup of coffee and pretend this didn’t happen.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we passed a rule mandating that all new federal buildings had to be carbon-neutral by 2030? The feds buy and build a lot of real estate. An effort to wring fossil-fuel energy out of those buildings — by increasing their efficiency and supplying them with renewables — would seriously bolster domestic markets for efficiency and distributed energy. Beyond that, it would serve as a proving ground and an example for the communities where those buildings are located. It would be galvanizing.

“But,” you’re protesting, “we would never do something so radical. Germany might. Denmark, maybe. Not us.”

Hark! I say to you. Hark to this sh*t: We do have such a rule! It was passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush! It’s on the books, the law of the land. Specifically, it is Section 433 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. It says that new federal buildings, or major renovations ($2.5 million or more) of federal buildings, must reduce their consumption of fossil-fuel energy (relative to a similar building in 2003) 55 percent by 2010, 80 percent by 2020, and 100 percent by 2030. (It hasn’t been funded yet, so that 2010 target is, er, no longer operational.)

Less than a month later, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) of the House Appropriations Committee offered an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill that would “prohibit funding” to implement Section 433.

What is motivating this stealth attack on one of the few genuinely ambitious energy laws in the U.S.?

For the AGA, it’s pretty simple: no fossil fuel means no natural gas. They don’t even make any bones about it. This is what it says in the brief:

The mandate runs counter to the Presidential position on natural gas as part of an “all of the above” energy strategy: President Obama has recently stressed the need for development of “every available source” of American energy in the most recent state of the union address. This mandate would halt the pursuit of increased use of natural gas to support the national priorities of helping to improve our economy, reduce environmental impacts and secure our nation’s energy future.

First off, the mandate would “halt the pursuit of increased use of natural gas”? Seriously? The feds own about 1 percent of the nation’s building stock. I’m pretty sure the booming natural gas industry will survive.

Second, this makes it pretty obvious that the natural gas industry does not see itself as a “bridge” to a clean energy future, as so many others do (or claim to). The AGA doesn’t think we should stop burning fossil fuels, even if that’s an option! Shockingly, it is in favor of the federal government using a lot of natural gas. Bridge, schmidge.

FPCC members include: Ameresco, Chevron, Constellation Energy Services, FPL Energy Services, Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Lockheed Martin, Noresco, Pepco Energy Services, Schneider-Electric, Siemens Government Services, Inc., and Trane/Ingersoll Rand. There’s no surprise in seeing the likes of Chevron here (they are, after all, in the business of selling fossil fuels), but there are a couple of surprises. Schneider-Electric has actually signed onto the 2030 Challenge. Johnson Controls has a Zero Energy Buildings Whitepaper featured on their website. Many of the other companies are prominent in the field of energy efficiency.

What gives?

Good question.

The rest of the issue brief mostly consists of whining that the targets can’t be met. It cites a few big power-plant projects and one 11-story building renovation it claims the rule will prevent, but as Ed Mazria of Architecture 2030 notes, there’s a way to get a waiver under Section 433 if the “requirement would be technically impracticable.”

The allegedly imperiled projects are a red herring anyway. The vast majority of federal buildings are one- or two-story housing structures. The vast majority (95.7 percent) of the non-residential buildings it owns are three stories and under. As Mazria says, “there are numerous low-cost solutions for dramatically reducing energy consumption in single story and low-rise buildings: daylighting and ventilation strategies, natural heating and cooling systems, and high-performance products, fixtures, and equipment, to name just a few.”

And energy use in these buildings doesn’t have to be eliminated — the buildings do not have to be “net zero energy” like, say, passivhaus standards would have it. They just have to be carbon-neutral. They can provide their own energy with on-site renewables (or combined heat and power, as long as it uses biomass instead of natural gas). And if they can’t do that, they can buy clean energy from utilities. (Fifty percent of electricity consumers now have that option; presumably the number will be far greater by 2030.) Presumably over the coming 18 years, these options will expand and evolve.

There’s no denying that Section 433 represents a stretch goal. Striving to reach that goal would involve lots of groping about and most likely some failures. But much would be discovered and achieved. Much momentum would be built. This is exactly the kind of thing we need to be doing. We need more stretch goals on the books if we’re ever going to get on the path to serious climate solutions.

The few good laws we do have deserve better than to be quietly assassinated through backroom lobbying and obscure amendments.

More domestic drilling does not make America less susceptible to global supply disruptions or protect consumers from gasoline price volatility, according to a new analysis [PDF] from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The CBO report reviewed different policies intended to make the country more energy secure, concluding that the only effective tool for shielding businesses and consumers from price spikes is to use less oil.

Because oil is sold on the global market, CBO concludes that increasing domestic oil production would do little to influence rising gas prices in the U.S.

These findings back up historical experience. According to an analysis of 36 years of gasoline prices and domestic oil production conducted by the Associated Press, there is zero statistical correlation between increased drilling and lower prices at the gas pump.

The CBO report creates a dilemma for drilling proponents. Even if increased drilling did substantially lower gas prices — which it has not — the agency says those lower prices would actually make the country less secure from price shocks:

Policies that promoted greater production of oil in the United States would probably not protect U.S. consumers from sudden worldwide increases in oil prices stemming from supply disruptions elsewhere in the world, even if increased production lowered the world price of oil on an ongoing basis. In fact, such lower prices would encourage greater use of oil, thus making consumers more vulnerable to increases in oil prices. Even if the United States increased production and became a net exporter of oil, U.S. consumers would still be exposed to gasoline prices that rose and fell in response to disruptions around the world.

In contrast, policies that reduced the use of oil and its products would create an incentive for consumers to use less oil or make decisions that reduced their exposure to higher oil prices in the future, such as purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles or living closer to work. Such policies would impose costs on vehicle users (in the case of fuel taxes or fuel-efficiency requirements) or taxpayers (in the case of subsidies for alternative fuels or for new vehicle technologies). But the resulting decisions would make consumers less vulnerable to increases in oil prices.

The solution is clear: The only way to make America more energy secure is to use less energy.

Even Mitt Romney understood this in 2007, when he admitted that “these high gasoline prices are probably here to stay” and advocated 50-mile-per-gallon fuel efficiency standards, public transportation, electric vehicles, and renewable alternatives.

However, today, Romney champions opening up virtually every possible area of the U.S. to oil drilling — disingenuously claiming it will make consumers more secure.

“The best thing we can do to get the price of gas to be more moderate and not have to be dependent upon the cartel is: drill in the gulf, drill in the outer continent shelf, drill in ANWR [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge], drill in North Dakota, South Dakota, drill in Oklahoma and Texas,” Romney said at a recent campaign stop.

Even as the analysis piles up showing that increased domestic drilling is not an effective solution to high gas prices or energy security, political leaders continue to repeat these false claims.

We need creative, proven ideas to help us make America more efficient and less dependent on oil — not a hollow drill-baby-drill mantra that does nothing to address the problem.

The Kickstarter video for The WATT? An Energy 101 Primer does a good job of explaining why, exactly, people should care about energy:

Energy is everything. It’s a part of pretty much every aspect of modern life. wherever you live, whatever you do, however you do it.

Unfortunately, most people know next to nothing about how this stuff actually works. The makers of the The WATT? — Focus the Nation, a clean energy youth organization, and Friend of Grist List Ben Jervey — aim to change that by publishing an “users’ manual for energy in the 21st century.” They’re going to publish it as a PDF whether you fund their Kickstarter project or not, but if they raise enough money, they are going to make it a much, much more awesome interactive e-book with charts, graphics and videos.

Maybe you yourself are preternaturally informed about this stuff, but trust us: there is a huge need for a book that explains energy in an engaging and clear way. Some of us had to read The Rough Guide to the Energy Crisis to make sure we actually understood how solar and wind power worked. This guide will be way less rough.

In April, 16,991 negative ads aired in various parts of the country and 13,748 of them — or 81 percent — focused on energy, according to data provided by New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, which tracks advertising.

Energy? Really?

The details of the story make clear that the vast bulk of these negative energy ads are attack ads directed at Obama, purchased by big PACs — Americans for Prosperity, American Energy Alliance, Let Freedom Ring, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies — awash in Big Oil money.

What the hell is going on? Why is energy dominating the right’s campaign against Obama?

Is this a response to public opinion? Doesn’t seem like it:

According to an April 13-17 CBS News/New York Times poll, 48 percent of Americans say the economy and jobs are the most important problem facing the country today. Fuel costs, which were chosen by 3 percent, fell behind health care and the budget deficit and national debt.

Most polls show something similar — the economy towers over every other issue.

Is it just that Big Oil has more money than … well, anyone else? It’s not like they’re the only wealthy industry that hates Obama — see, for instance, the financial sector. But then, Big Oil contains some of the most profitable corporations in the history of corporations, so maybe there are just lots of oil kajillionaires floating around with nothing better to do.

Is it just that Republicans have no other decent line of attack? The obvious way to go is the economy, but unfortunately for the GOP, the economy seems to be recovering, albeit slowly and fitfully, which is why Romney is being forced into such contortions. It’s not as though the U.S. public is demanding more crackdowns on contraception. Reactionary anti-immigrant and anti-gay policies work for the base, but not so much for the masses. Similarly, beating the war drums against Iran fires up neocons and chest-beaters, but the public at large isn’t eager for more conflict. And to the great confusion and frustration of the Tea Party, Americans generally like Obama on a personal level.

So what does the GOP have to offer? There’s just not much in the cupboard. Energy is one of the only remaining issues where the right thinks it has a clear advantage, an ability to tie Obama to the far left and turn Independents against him. (I think they’re wrong about this, and given Obama’s concerted pushback — a sharp break from the typical Democratic “Frantic Retreat” strategy on energy — it sounds like his campaign does too.) It may be that attacks are focused on energy because they simply can’t think of anything else.

I don’t feel like I have a great explanation for this. What accounts for the overwhelming dominance of Big Oil and energy in the right’s campaign against Obama? What do y’all think?

There’s a bunch of discussion right now on renewable electricity vs. baseload electricity. David Roberts gives a good German example here. Chris Nelder goes so far as to suggest that thanks to renewables, “baseload is doomed,” while John Farrell suggests that renewable energy is the new and sexy iPad, destined to replace the old baseload typewriter. Meanwhile, in utility land, we see issues like the one that took place in the Northwest last year, with Bonneville Power Association (BPA) forcing the curtailment of wind turbines, on the claim that the grid could not readily accommodate the rising percentage of intermittent resources.

So is BPA just a Paleolithic typewriter sales rep, or are these smart writers missing something fundamental about the power grid? I suggest to you that both are right — but that the debate is focusing on the wrong axis. As evidence, consider that the percent of power generated from renewable energy in the U.S. today is virtually the same as the percent of power we generated from renewable energy 20 years ago. If something dramatic is happening in renewable energy that is disrupting the old paradigm, it hasn’t happened yet. So then why is there so much noise about the sudden challenge integrating renewable energy into our grid?

The simple answer is that it’s easy to integrate renewable energy into the grid, and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who disagrees. What’s hard to integrate is intermittent, non-dispatchable energy into the grid, which is only a small subset of renewable energy. Moreover, these resources don’t compete in any meaningful way with baseload assets — but they have big consequences on other intermittent dispatchable sources.

In other words, this is not a conversation about renewables or baseload. It is a conversation about wind.

Our electric system long ago learned to deal with demand volatility: You turn on your lights, turn off your TV, and the grid immediately adjusts the power output of some generator on the system. In most cases, this is done with intermittent, quick-dispatchable resources. Sometimes that’s hydro, but usually it’s a mix of engines and gas turbines that are cheap to install and capable of very rapid startups and shutdowns. Coal and nuclear (aka “baseload”) are neither cheap to install nor capable of rapid shifts in output, so really don’t serve this function except in extreme cases.

Historically, the U.S. renewable mix has been dominated by baseloaded, or, in the case of big hydro with upstream reservoir capacity, dispatchable sources. Those have proven fairly easy to integrate into the system; biomass and geothermal compete with coal and nuclear to serve the base demands of the system, and hydro swings, acting sometimes as a baseload resource and other times as an intermittent resource that can quickly swing capacity up or down.

What’s changed in recent years is wind — and in particular, large-scale wind farms that (at least proportionally) have come at the expense of virtually all other renewable sources. Over the last 20 years, there’s been very little growth in generation from renewables on a percent basis. What’s changed is the mix:

In 1989, the easy-to-integrate stuff (hydro, biomass, geothermal) accounted for 99 percent of the renewable mix. By 2010, they made up just 77 percent of the renewable mix, as wind has grown from essentially zero to 22 percent of total U.S. renewable generation.

This is a key point: Renewables are no more difficult to integrate into the grid than Indian food is difficult to integrate into a healthy diet. The challenge grid managers face is the rising concentration of wind within that mix. It is a deep-fried lamb samosa: really tasty and great in moderation, but hopefully not the biggest portion on your plate.

The challenge that wind has created for system managers is that it has introduced a whole new variable into system management — supply volatility. Loads (demand) are still tripping on and off with some degree of random fluctuation, but we now find ourselves with significant portions of the generation supply tripping on and off in random ways, at volumes that are really hard to handle. This National Renewable Energy Laboratory report [PDF] suggests that by 2020, the variability of generation in the western U.S. could be 57 times greater than the variability of demand. That’s an enormous challenge.

To be clear, supply volatility isn’t hard in small doses. Every generation technology is subject to random, unplanned outages, and you cannot manage the grid without taking that potential into account. For big swaths of the U.S. power grid, we can accommodate much greater penetration of wind without any difficulty.

The challenge arises when the penetration of those resources within a certain control area exceeds the megawatt rating of the largest single generator in any given control area.

Since the grid has already been designed to accommodate an outage of their biggest generator, any system-wide reduction in wind turbine output below that level is already planned for. The issue arises when there is a statistical possibility of a regional weather-dependent outage that exceeds the size of that large generator.

This is a matter of law as much as a matter of technology. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) requires grid managers to ensure that the probability of a blackout is less than one day in 10 years, and if a grid manager cannot accommodate swings that are within that statistical possibility (as regional wind variation most certainly is), they are in deep legal doo-doo.

Until recently, that hasn’t mattered much with respect to renewable integration, but the dramatic growth in wind has changed this dynamic. Nationally, wind contributes just 5 percent of total U.S. megawatt-hours, so there should be ample room to grow. But the NERC standards necessarily impose regional constraints; the stability of the system in Maine doesn’t make a lick of difference to the West Texas system operator, and the 5 percent of generation from wind is concentrated in a few local pockets. (More than half of all the wind generated in the U.S. in 2010 was in just five states: Texas, California, Iowa, Washington, and Minnesota.)

This site from BPA shows the realities facing a grid manager: Wind can account for 25 percent of their instantaneous generation. Since the total wind on the system can (and often does) go from full capacity to zero over fairly short intervals (and vice versa), they have to have some other resource in hand that can instantaneously “mirror” those swings — in their case, hydro plays that role, so long as reservoir capacity and aquaculture considerations allow.

BPA’s hydro capacity makes it an exceptional case, though; for most of the grid, the swing generator that can immediately dispatch up or down is a gas turbine. Also note that while much is made of wind’s potential to suddenly turn off, its ability to suddenly turn on must also be managed.

Outside of BPA, this means that utilities are today keeping a fleet of gas turbines running in hot standby, burning fuel but not generating power so they can instantly ramp up when the wind dies. At the same time, they’ve got gas turbines running full-throttle so they can instantly ramp down when the wind picks up. As a practical matter, this means that continued increases in the penetration of wind on the system must be accompanied by an increase in natural gas combustion (a point T. Boone Pickens keenly understands). This raises a whole host of challenges, not all of which are environmental. For starters, the natural gas transmission system is not designed for the same reliability levels that NERC demands of the power fleet, so an increase in the percentage of power we get from natural gas is implicitly reducing the overall reliability of the system.

Solutions

To be sure, these are solvable problems. If we could find the money and the political will, we could install lots of high-voltage direct current transmission and take advantage of the fact that the wind is always blowing somewhere. If we could invent low cost, high charge/discharge cycle energy storage we could eliminate the need for spin-up/spin-down generation, storing the output of wind farms until it can provide the most value to the grid.

Maybe those solutions will come to pass, but note that in both cases, their obstacles are financial, technological, and political (NIMBY, etc.). Perhaps we should solve those problems, but it’s not clear we can. It’s also not clear that the resources required to solve those problems are the most cost-effective route to a clean and renewable future. The fact that it may be possible to develop a nutritionally complete, healthy samosa doesn’t mean that should be a priority of our food industry.

The bottom line is that wind — just like any other power source — is dangerous at high doses. Clean energy is perfectly compatible with a reliable electric grid, and wind is a critical part of a clean and reliable future. But only in moderation, as part of a balanced grid diet.

On the whole, this is a good thing. We have lots of history integrating clean energy into the U.S. power grid, and there is no reason we cannot continue to do so. But there are real dangers associated with an over-concentration on any single resource that we cannot ignore.

Filed under: Article, Energy Policy, Renewable Energy, Wind Power]]>http://grist.org/wind-power/how-wind-power-fits-into-our-energy-diet/feed/0windmills-flickr-stormcrypt-380x310.jpggristadminwindmills-flickr-stormcrypt-380x310.jpgSolar policy can advance (or delay) grid parity by a decadehttp://grist.org/energy-policy/solar-policy-can-advance-or-delay-grid-parity-by-a-decade/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_energypolicy
http://grist.org/energy-policy/solar-policy-can-advance-or-delay-grid-parity-by-a-decade/#commentsMon, 30 Apr 2012 18:34:49 +0000http://grist.org/?p=95609]]>A version of this post originally appeared on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

In their interactive graphic, Bloomberg Energy Finance calls solar grid parity (when electricity from solar costs less than grid power) the “golden goal.” It’s an excellent illustration of how the right energy policy can help a nation go gold on solar or wallow in metallurgical obscurity. In the case of the U.S., it may mean delaying grid parity by eight years.

In the screenshot below, countries in purple have reached the golden goal in 2012 based on the quality of their solar resource and the cost of grid electricity, as well as a 6 percent expected return on investment for solar developers. (Note to Bloomberg graphic designers — countries meeting the golden goal could be colored gold.)

By 2020, the universe of countries has expanded significantly, and includes the United States (the delay due largely to differences in the cost of electricity, much cheaper in the U.S.).*

In the U.S., however, there is more uncertainty. Incentives for renewable energy have a habit of expiring based on the vagaries of federal and state legislatures. Incentives come in the form of tax credits, leaving developers dependent on a fluctuating market for tax equity partners to “monetize” the credits. This higher risk means solar developers want higher returns (more like 10 percent than 6 percent). (I wrote about this in a report last fall.)

The 4 percent higher expected rate of return means another eight years of waiting for the golden goal, delaying solar grid parity in the U.S. from 2020 to 2028.

This highlights a huge irony in U.S. energy policy. There’s a strong bias toward “market-based” policy (auctions, renewable energy credit markets, etc) on the assumption that cutthroat competition to deliver solar will give ratepayers the best deal. But the high risk to developers means an expectation of higher returns, so that the winning bids are likely higher than could be proffered in a low risk environment.

High risk means Americans may pay more for solar than their international counterparts. It probably explains why Germans — with a decade of low-risk under their feed-in tariff — are installing solar for half the cost in America ($2.60 per Watt compared to $5.20). It also undermines the opportunity for local ownership, a key tool for spreading the economic rewards of and political support for solar power.

Reaching the golden goal is inevitable, but a country’s time of arrival depends heavily on its choice of solar policy.